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Stacey Murphy’s BK Farmyards sounds like a good idea, but how does it compare to history’s better-known example of sharecropping? Here’s our first-ever chart comparing backyard farming and post-slavery agri-oppression.

Sharecropping

Historic farming movement

BK Farmyards

1870s-1890s

Heyday

2009-?

40 acres

Plot size

1/70th of an acre

Gave poor, recently freed slaves a way to work on land that they could not otherwise afford.

Advantage

Gives Yuppies a guilt-free way to make their backyards beautiful and skim off delicious produce at the same time.